From aphex Sent Mon, Dec 14th 1998, 00:49
From aphex Sent Mon, Dec 14th 1998, 00:49
slag boom van loon – ziq005 I heard many people saying that this was not what they expected, and they were right. I found the same to be true. If you had listened to Speedy J’s last effort “Public Energy No. 1,” which sounded like everything was put through a noise filter, and distorted to fuck, but to a very good effect. And the instant classic of last year “Lunatic Harness” from Mike P., was a somewhat divergent scheme of Drill ‘n Bass (Who will actually admit that they are drill ‘n bass? It’s gotten a lot of negative press here on IDM as of late, why won't anyone tell me why???). So “Slag Boom Van Loon” would seem like it would be the clashing of two of the noisiest sorts of IDM, making some kind of mind fuck of noise. Actually it is quite the opposite. The opener, “Light of India,” is a smooth bumping number with a very hummable melody, and little squelching effects added on top. It goes on for about 9 minutes where towards the end it gets all disonant, then in Mu-ziq style they find themselves coming out of it and resolving the song on a nice note. This almost seems like what everyone refers to as classic IDM, kind of reminiscent of “Bluff Limbo” and “Tango ‘n Vectif”. But then the classic sound does not stop. Remember when everyone was going ambient? “Spc-ch-pn,” brings it all back (minimalism?), with a broken piano theme reminiscent of Satie, but with a nice buzzing ambience (lo-fi?) in the background. Why isn’t more IDM like this anymore? Maybe I’m not listening to the right stuff. “Casual” another typified piece of Mu-ziq history (am I comparing this to mu-ziq too much? I haven’t heard too much Speedy J). A looping piece with the great Mike P. melody on top. “Butch” hints at all that Autechre, MAS, funked up rhythm drum patterns, probably more MAS (funkstorung), with the quiet melody. “Bromtollen” has got Bluff Limbo written all over it. “Poppy Seed” has the first sign of Speedy J’s harsh filtered kick drum, and other filters attached to things. “Mooshy” goes back to that old ambient design of all the first two Mu-ziq albums, almost better than them too. Great song. “Sutedja” hints back again at that weird drum looping of MAS releases, but with a cantantonic loose melody (funkstorung anyone? That’s probably too harsh of a description). The last two songs “Fallen Angels Entering Pandemonium” and “Pedals”, get into that long winded ambient thing that was in back in the S.A.W. 2 days. These are however not long winded songs. Just excellent tunes that rank up there with the best idm ambient tunes ever made. Slag Boom Van Loon, for all the old idm folks that can appreciate songs that don’t sound out of the Autechre/MaS/Chocalate Ind./Thomas Brinkmann; progressive rhythm type gents of now. Just the good old chilled out melodies. An excellent release. Will appear on my top ten list this year with all of the aformentioned villains of idm. Quite a standout release. Rusty